“There are only the pursued, the pursuing, the busy and the tired”

She moves through the dusty twilight.

Swirling the night air with the breathy folds of her dress. Dazzled eyes follow her spinning form, they alight on her pale face tipped towards the moonlight. But there the illusion fades. As one approaches, the dim light gives way to cheap sequins, the drooping, swollen feather in her voluminous hair. Her strained eyes, which glowed with inviting mystery from afar, crinkle with bitterness.

And her smile! This smile gives nothing away. That is, until you search deep in the corners of these unyielding lips, and then a gorgeous little window opens into a low landscape tainted with regret, tears shed long into the hateful night, and the hint of lost purity and loveliness. And from this window springs the gentle lady who twirls in the present. A lady who lost her faith in the world on an evening as glowing as this one. People shy away from her fading beacon of light, avert their eyes from that oh so casual smile she seems to throw on her face so coolly. And to think that smile used to alight in every man’s dreams and keep their hearts aflutter, long after they kissed her goodbye on nights like this!